Vaughn Palmer: Ben Stewart's farewell gift is a flight to Beijing

Vaughn Palmer, Vancouver Sun10.29.2013

Westside-Kelowna MLA Ben Stewart announces that he is stepping down from his MLA job and minister of citizen services and open government as Premier Christy Clark listens at Quails’ Gate Winery in Kelowna on June 5, 2013.

VICTORIA — When B.C. Liberal MLA Ben Stewart gave up his seat to Premier Christy Clark mere weeks after winning it in the May election, suspicious minds wondered if there had been any promise of a reward down the road.

The wealthy proprietor of Quails’ Gate Winery probably didn’t need the MLA salary or the pension he would forgo by leaving the legislature prematurely at the outset of his second term.

Still, politicians work hard to win their seats, even safe ones like Westside-Kelowna where Stewart won with 58 per cent of the vote.

Plus he had served as a minister in both the Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark administrations, and clearly liked being in politics.

What had it taken to persuade him to give up the job, so soon after securing it?

Nothing, insisted both the outgoing MLA and his would-be successor, as they stood alongside each other to announce the news at his winery on June 5.

“Both Clark and Stewart said no inducement was offered, or made, to get Stewart to step aside,” the Kelowna Capital News reported.

Stewart, who had to fight back the tears at one point in the news conference, said both the offer and the acceptance were all his own work.

“I’m pleased to be able to make the riding available to Premier Clark,” he told reporters. “I want to ensure the premier gets a chance to deliver on not just a vision, but on some of the real things that we need to do for British Columbia.”

The premier paid tribute to the departing MLA’s selfless integrity. “He’s not a man who did it because he needed to be asked,” she said. “He did it because he has character.”

Still, the whispering continued throughout the subsequent byelection, where Stewart campaigned tirelessly for the sometimes absent premier, putting her further into his debt.

She won big on election night and again doused him with accolades: “Ben Stewart has served this community with integrity and commitment, with discipline, with focus, with hard work and, most of all, he has served this community with tremendous honour.”

The ex-MLA promised to keep a hand in with the newly elected one: “I’m going to guide the premier in trying to make certain she understands local issues, and I’ll continue to work with her to make sure she is as visible as she can be being the premier.”

The premier promised to draw on his expertise and knowledge, while emphasizing that he would not be paid for his advice — nor had he asked to be paid.

There matters stood until Monday when the premier, again flanked by Stewart, announced in Vancouver that he was being appointed the province’s new investment and trade commissioner to Asia.

Salary: $150,000 a year, or roughly what Stewart would have made serving as a cabinet minister, presuming he’d been reappointed after the election.

Base of operations: Beijing, with frequent travel to the province’s other trade offices in the region.

Mandate: Ambitious, as will be seen by a trio of excerpts from a lengthy wish list: “Leverage and maximize key strategic opportunities identified and developed as a result of trade and investment missions of the premier and ministers.”

“Initiate and/or build strategic relationships with key companies and executives interested in developing, investing in or exporting B.C.’s natural gas opportunities. “Lead the development and implementation of strategies to identify and attract key Asian companies to establish their North American head offices in B.C.”

Precisely how the affable one-term MLA, ex-minister and proprietor of a successful B.C. winery was qualified to undertake any of this was not clear from the background material provided by the government.

Nevertheless Clark insisted that he was “uniquely qualified” and when asked what those qualifications might be, focused on the Beijing-based commissioner’s potential to develop government-to-government relationships via his personal contact list back here in B.C.

“Business success in Asia requires being seen alongside and together with government,” as her government’s press release put it, “taking advantage of vehicles like government to government memorandums of understanding that establish a foundation to grow business connections, or having government officials witness business to business deals and partnership agreements.”

Asians, she went on to suggest, are impressed by personal relationships, and they would soon recognize that the new trade and investment commissioner was “on close terms with everyone in cabinet, including myself.”

He has her phone number, see. And that, as opposed to language skills, extensive experience in the region, or proven credentials as a trade and investment expert, should do the trick.

Whatever you say, premier.

Still, the government has made more dubious appointments.

Indeed, it proceeded to make one almost immediately, naming Gordon Wilson, the former Liberal leader and former New Democratic Party cabinet minister, as a $50,000-a-year advocate on liquefied natural gas.

Not clear what were his qualifications, other than endorsing the premier on the eve of the election. But the way Clark does her political calculations, that was probably good enough.

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Vaughn Palmer: Ben Stewart's farewell gift is a flight to Beijing

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